16 October 2013


You Can If You Think You Can

Jai Swaminarayan Friend!

Have you ever heard someone say that “if you believe, you can achieve”? This phrase is a simple way of saying that you can accomplish almost any task as long as you have faith and believe that you can do it. In fact, there is a saying in baseball: “You can’t possibly hit the ball if you are thinking of all the ways you can miss.” This once again states that failure in completing tasks can be a result of a lack of faith in one’s abilities.

There are countless individuals who have overcome obstacles and achieved the seemingly impossible, all because they had faith in themselves and their abilities.

One individual is Erik Weihenmayer. In 2001, he became the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth! Another extraordinary individual is Walter “Buddy” Davis. Although he was paralyzed at the age of nine and was unable to walk, he eventually achieved his goal of becoming a gold medal Olympic high jumper through a combination of faith and hard work. Perhaps the greatest example is our guru Pramukh Swami Maharaj. Even at the age of 92, he has inspired over a thousand mandirs around the world!

All these examples highlight the fact that believing in yourself and your abilities can help you achieve your goals. Whether it’s having to study for a test at school or having to make the game-winning shot in a basketball game, your goals will require you to have faith in yourselves if they are to be achieved. When a task seems too big, we like to tell ourselves that it is impossible. Wouldn’t you say the same thing to a blind man who told you that he wanted to climb Mount Everest? Wouldn’t you say that it is impossible for someone who cannot walk to become a gold medal Olympic high jumper? Isn’t it impossible for a 92 year old man to break the world record for the number of mandirs consecrated by a single person? No! Your mind has been deceiving you! These tasks are possible. They have been achieved. The same goes for your tasks. The first step in achieving your goals is utmost faith. We have utmost faith in Maharaj and Swami. Similarly, we must learn to have faith in the abilities they have given us.

Although having faith is important, what is faith without actions and hard work? It is one thing to believe that you can climb a mountain, and another to actually start climbing it. Faith and hard work go hand in hand. One without the other is useless. Learning how to utilize a perfect mix of the two is a vital tool that helps you achieve your goals throughout life. 

Until next time,

Jay Swaminarayan from ‘kids.baps.org’ team

Kid’s Creation is a cool and fun way of expressing your satsang knowledge and you are all so good at doing so. But, how many of you have spread the word about this feature to your friends? There are so many creative minds like yours that could benefit so much from using Kid’s Creation but the problem is they do not know about it.
http://kids.baps.org/kidscreation/index.htm